A world of Asian-owned businesses in Quincy

People who were in Quincy’s first and second waves of Asian immigrants have been hard at work building businesses. In the last three years, 111 businesses have applied to the licensing board to open brick-and-mortar locations, and 53 of them – 47 percent – were Asian-owned, according to City Clerk Joseph Shea.

By Dan Schneider

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Dan Schneider

Posted Sep. 14, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 14, 2013 at 2:10 PM

By Dan Schneider

Posted Sep. 14, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 14, 2013 at 2:10 PM

QUINCY

» Social News

Anyone who’s lived in Quincy for the last two decades has seen a distinct change in many of the city’s businesses. Where there used to be just a few, there are dozens of restaurants in Quincy serving Asian cuisine.

In South Quincy, what was once a Bradlees department store plaza is now the China Pearl restaurant, the Kam Man Foods supermarket, and other Asian and non-ethnic food and service shops.

The 52-year-old Barry’s Deli in Wollaston closed in March and is set to reopen under new ownership as Koi, a sushi restaurant.

Tackey Chan, the son of Chinese immigrants and a state representative from Quincy, has lived here since the 1980s and seen the changes firsthand.

“I tell people the same thing: It’s not the Quincy I grew up in, either,” Chan said.

Between 2000 and 2010, Quincy’s Asian population grew from 13,546 to 22,174, nearly a quarter of the city’s 2010 population. Asians accounted for 64 percent of the city’s population growth during the period.

Of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, Quincy now has the highest proportion of Asian residents.

People who were in Quincy’s first and second waves of Asian immigrants have been hard at work building businesses.

In the last three years, 111 businesses have applied to the licensing board to open brick-and-mortar locations, and 53 of them – 47 percent – were Asian-owned, according to City Clerk Joseph Shea.

“It’s fair to say that in the last decade, easily more than one-third of the people that come before us are Asian,” Shea said.

Although many of the applications were for restaurants and salons, the overall list is strikingly diverse. It includes coffee shops, dress stores, clubs, auto repair shops and a hardware store.

And the diversity goes beyond the kind of business being developed. It extends to the consumer base business owners are targeting.

Chan takes exception to the idea that the Asian community is a monolithic block.

“People refer to this area as ‘Second Chinatown,’ but it’s really not, because the population isn’t condensed in one certain area,” he said. “There’s no so-called ghetto where you’ve crammed an ethnic group in a bureaucratic zone and that’s it.”

There are Asian-owned businesses throughout the city.

“What you see now, as the residential population around business districts has changed and become more diversified, is that the businesses start to match that diversity,” said Dean Rizzo, president of the Quincy Chamber of Commerce.

Quincy’s new mercantile class is more diverse than a single ethnic or racial grouping. Some of its members are first-generation immigrants living what they describe as the American Dream.

Among them is Ha Chu, owner of the Kimarie Hair Salon and Nail Spa on Beale Street in Wollaston. Chu moved to Quincy in 1992 and immediately set out to open her own business.

Page 2 of 3 - “If you have a job like this, it’s good for you. You can go anywhere and do it, and be successful,” Chu said.

The new mercantile class also includes immigrants’ children, many of whom are preparing to take over the family business someday.

Grant Gao, 30, is the son of Jian Gao and Xing Lin, the president and manager of the sign-making company Excel Signs in South Quincy. After graduating from the Wentworth Institute of Technology in 2006, Grant decided – somewhat reluctantly – to get into the family business.

“It can be hard to work with your parents,” he said. “You can’t really just say, ‘I quit.’ Especially in Chinese culture, it’s tradition that families will stick together.”

Gao serves as a liaison between Excel Signs’ non-Asian clientele and his non-English-speaking parents. As Quincy’s Asian population has sought to provide services to the broader population, the liaison role has become more common.

While some local businesses make efforts to hire Chinese or other Asian-language speakers in order to serve the growing multi-ethnic population, predominantly Chinese-speaking immigrants have had to enlist translators when they seek to open a business, in order to navigate the city government.

That’s where someone like Jimmy Liang comes in. Liang is a 35-year-old Chinese immigrant who has lived in Quincy since 1983. He operates a group of six restaurants under the name JP Fuji Group.

“I’ll help people with this stuff on a regular basis,” Liang said. “Even something as simple as finding someone to help them fix their refrigerator, or showing them which department to go to to resolve a permitting issue.”

For Ha Chu of the Kimarie Salon, it was her largely white clientele that helped her get on her feet. Many of those people are still her customers today.

“We just asked around. A lot of the customers were very friendly, and showed me how to get the paperwork I needed,” Chu said.

Race aside, these business owners don’t see themselves as fundamentally different from their non-Asian counterparts.

A survey of the city’s Asian business owners by the Quincy Chamber of Commerce and the city of Quincy’s Department of Constituent Services saw race-related issues mentioned only once as a major problem for Asian business owners in Quincy.

The biggest problems? The same ones you’d expect that any business owner might mention: high taxes, complex regulatory requirements, and not enough parking.

Like Tackey Chan, Kam Man Foods general manager Dr. Wan Wu sees basic economics at work in the growth of these businesses.

“We get 10,000 customers during the week, with all races of people coming through,” Wu said. “It’s all about the market.”